Saturday, April 9, 2011

Fighting For An Audience... Battles On The Pitch

The HQ has always maintained that this is the best time of year...

Baseball starts, hockey is making its playoff run ((the best month of the year non-stop)), and every sport on the planet- even football in some form or another- is trying to find its audience during the spring time.

The HQ decided to take a look at soccer on the way home to see the end of the Frozen Four and UMD's overtime win over Michigan...

The HQ's southern frontier has both kinds of soccer... country and western...Men's and women's...

The original incarnation of women's soccer had a double-blue version of the Atlanta Beat that made it to a few of the WUSA finals in Foxborough and San Diego- losing both...

The league had big corporate backers, but burned through the money in half the time they thought it would. After three years, the league went belly up, but they've been back at the stream-lined WPS league now...

Here's an interview with the Rowdy One, Julie Foudy, about the WPS from the beginning((HT: womensprosoccer))

This new league has had its issues- the LA, St. Louis, and Chicago teams have folded in the last two years. And this year, had magicjack not taken over the Washington franchise and been given permission to move them to Florida Atlantic as a home base, they might not be around.

But Atlanta's Beat version 2.0 is still giving it the college try. They had close to 3,000 for their season opener in a 4-1 loss to Boston, but roster overhauls will do that for you...

Evidence from owner Fitz Johnson and this interview with radio station WVEE-FM/V103

The key for the Beat and their counterparts, the Silverbacks ((both men and women)), is finding their niche. The Beat are housed in one of the fastest growing communities in the metro Atlanta area. It will be up to them to make sure the moms can take their families to a local environment and give daughters the appropriate role models. And that's where they're marketing at present...

The Silverbacks are in a stadium that they built for themselves in a part of Atlanta that is mainly Hispanic in population- and they populate the games- no question. The men are in the NASL version 2.0, and they play underneath Hispanic billboards with Hispanic sponsors and specifically-marketed products ((beer, etc.))

They had 3,500 announced in a 5,000 seat barn that used to be the site of an old drive-in movie theatre- the HQ used to go there growing up...

The Silverbacks main stumbling block is the two years they took off to regroup financially... even in a teriffic location...

Will people remember...???That's the question for both...We'll keep you posted with highlights all season long...